Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Margaret Atwood

Quote by Margaret Atwood

“In “Victorian Literature”, I taught George Eliot’s great novel Middlemarch. The younger group hated it: the characters in it made the wrong decisions and married the wrong people, and they themselves were never going to make such mistakes. The older group loved it: the characters in it made the wrong decisions and married the wrong people - it was just like real life.”

Quote by Margaret Atwood

Book:Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts
Create image

Work

Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is a renowned Canadian poet, novelist, playwright, and critic, born on November 18, 1939. Her works are known for their unique style and profound insights into social issues, with notable titles including 'The Handmaid's Tale' and 'Cat's Eye'. more

You May Also Like

“One may justify the existence of men in power in many different ways. Yet power remains a pernicious thing for what justifies it is inexpiable. Fragility, which belongs to the realm of appearances, is to be preferred to the fractal which is merely the quality of a mathematical object. It is exciting to hear one of your fondest ideas formulated in one fell swoop, better than you could have done it yourself. You feel no intellectual jealousy at seeing yourself outstripped in this way. You only feel jealous when you are overtaken by your shadow.”

PowerJealousyFragilityVoluntary ServitudeLikemindedness
Book:Cool memories
Create image

“Then Kaianan stood staring at them; Darayan and Archibel laughing and mucking around as they leaped over their back-fence home. Envy held her; she wished she had someone close who understood her like they did each other. Maybe Xandou did understand her—but he would never allow her out, nor would Dersji. Kaianan sighed; maybe it was someone she just hadn’t met yet.”

FriendshipLongingEnvyJealousyComparison
Book:The Battle of Middle Forsda
Create image

“This heat in the belly which remains after the evisceration and freezing of bodies can be nothing other than the jealousy of the living for the dead. Our jealousy for the object is that of miserable subjects for what has passed living into a perfection which is beyond us. Man's jealousy of woman, that more than sexual heat, that heat of passion, is born of a desire for what has been torn from him and reincarnated elsewhere in the other sex - and is it not indeed diabolical? - and which sneers at him from there like the hypostasis of the best of himself. Consoling signs. After the fear of victory, which causes the sportsman to fail at the last gasp, after the fear of power - the fear of wielding power - which even the political class shows many signs of, falling in this way into the loneliness of the long-distance runner, we now see science beset by weakness. Reaching the end of the course, this flat-footed idol is also frightened of its shadow.”

ScienceJealousyHypostasis
Book:Cool memories
Create image